


Healing

by DarkHeartInTheSky



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel's Trueform, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post Episode 13e12 Various and Sundry Villians, cas is a good friend, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13561875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHeartInTheSky/pseuds/DarkHeartInTheSky
Summary: 13.12 CodaSam can't talk to Dean about Lucifer. But he can talk to Cas.





	Healing

                They got the call late in the evening; the sun had already set, and Sam, bones itching under his skin, had been desperate to just climb into bed and shut the whole world out.

                Instead, he found himself in the Impala with Dean, driving ten miles over the speed limit, across the deserted Interstate. The sun rose, and then set again before they entered Massachusetts. Sam’s head throbbed the entire time. The coffee in his hands from their last pit stop had long gone cold.

                They found Cas loitering in a motel parking lot. He already got them a room.

                “You okay?” Dean asked him, after a hug just long enough to become awkward. Sam shifted on his feet as he watched it. 

                “I’m okay,” Cas said. He was dirty, but Sam couldn’t see any wounds. “We need to talk.” With those words, a hard lump rotted in his stomach. Bile burned at the back of his throat. Cas lead them into the room.  Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. Dean stood next to Cas’s side. They listened to him.

                If Sam had eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours, he would’ve vomited it all back up. His hands trembled, and Sam couldn’t even look at Cas as he spoke, horror eating away at his internal tissue.

                Lucifer was back.

                Rowena was right.

                _He always came back._

                “He’s weakened,” Cas continued, but Sam could barely hear him over the rushing of air in his ears. He covered his mouth with his hands. Lucifer weakened? No such thing.

                “He got away from me, but he’s wounded,” Cas was still talking, still talking about _Lucifer_ , who was back here, in this world, somewhere out there, anywhere out there.

                _He could be coming for you_.

                Dean and Cas talked. They talked, and Sam couldn’t hear them. It just cycled over and over again in his brain, _He always came back_.

                There was a hand on his shoulder. He jerked away and lashed his arm out. “Don’t touch me!” he hissed.

                “Sam, open your eyes.”

                The voice—Sam couldn’t ignore it. It was soft and gentle. Cas looked at him, concern and sadness swimming in his eyes. Sam swallowed and inhaled shakily. “Sorry,” he muttered, voice barely audible.

                “It’s okay,” Cas said.

                Sam’s eyes scanned the room. “Dean?”

                “I asked him to leave for a moment.” Cas didn’t try to come closer. His hands stayed visible by his sides.

                “I’m sorry,” Sam said suddenly. Cas frowned, eyebrows pinched together.

                “What for?”

                “Asmodeus—we didn’t—we didn’t know. We couldn’t tell.” Speaking was a battle. The words fought to get past his tongue. Weeks. Weeks Asmodeus pretended to be Cas. And they bought into it. The signs were there. Dean, just a little while ago, pointed it out.

                _He asks a bunch of questions and has no leads_.

                If he had been paying more attention. . . if he had cared a little more. . . focused, instead of burying his head in the sand. . . Instead of worrying about himself. . .

                “Sam, breathe,” Cas said.

                Sam inhaled again, and the dusty air shuddered inside his lungs.

                “Breathe out.”

                He did. Cas repeated it. Breathe in, breathe out. In, out. Sam tried to focus on Cas’s voice, on matching his breaths to Cas’s voice. He couldn’t stop shaking, though. It rattled his bones.

                “Cas,” he broke out, tears burning at his eyes. “Lucifer. He--,” Sam couldn’t finish the sentence.

                “I know,” Cas said.

                Sam gnawed on his lip and pulled at a hangnail. “Do—do you see his face? His—his real face?”

                Sam saw it all the time. There’d been a time, after Cas healed his wall, that he thought he could move past it. Move on. He tried to focus on the good, all the people they saved, the fact that Lucifer couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

                But now Lucifer was out. And he did hurt people. And Sam couldn’t save anyone. Kaia was dead because of him. Eileen. Charlie. Mom, if she wasn’t dead already, would be soon if they didn’t find her.

                And Cas—Lucifer had killed him. And Cas had spent weeks imprisoned with him, his killer.

                Cas’s face was impassive. “I do.”

                Sam trembled. “I can’t stop seeing it,” he said. He looked to the door. Dean wouldn’t have gone far. If Sam knew his brother, Dean was probably right against the door, ear pressed to the wood. He leaned closer towards Cas and dropped his voice. “Dean, he tries. He’ll listen. He won’t judge. I know all that. But he’ll never understand. He can’t ever understand.”

                Rowena did though. And Cas would too.

                Cas gestured beside Sam. “Can I—”

                It took Sam a minute, but he nodded. Cas sat beside him. His hands stayed in his lap.

                “Lucifer can still fly,” Cas said. “But the Michael from the other world took most of his grace. Really, he’s just a step above human. And if it helps, I did stab him before he took off.”

                Sam tried to imagine it. “Did you make it hurt?”

                “I tried to.”

                Sam huffed. “What was it like?”

                Cas was quiet for a moment. “Without his grace, Lucifer is. . . whiny. Petulant. Irritating.” Cas’s nose crinkled. “For so long, he’s hidden behind his powers. He hasn’t ever had to fear injury, or death. What does a lion have to fear of a mouse? He’s always been the strongest person around, but now. . .”

                Cas turned to face Sam. “Sam, what Lucifer has done to you. . . There are no words. But after everything he’s done to you, you will still face him, try to defeat him. Try to protect others from him. You and Dean—you are the most courageous men I’ve ever known. You are the strongest men I’ve ever known. And you’ve always been stronger than Lucifer. You overpowered him when he was at his strongest.”

                The tears started to spill down Sam’s face. And as he started to cry, the tension he’d been holding inside for the past few months vanished, and his muscles turned to jelly. He bent over his knees and cried.

                “We will defeat Lucifer,” Cas said. “And I promise, Sam, when the opportunity arises, you will get to deliver the killing blow.”

                Sam had imagined it himself, over and over. What it would be like to kill Lucifer. In recent years, the task seemed like it was an impossibility. And the fear set in and he couldn’t escape it.

                He tried to imagine it again. Lucifer, weakened. Still hurting from Cas’s wound. Hurting from having his grace extracted. _Violated._

                But Sam couldn’t erase the image of Lucifer’s face out of his mind.

                “Sam, can I touch you?”

                Sam couldn’t talk. But he nodded. Cas’s fingers lightly touched the back of his head.

                Sam couldn’t describe what he saw. He wasn’t sure it was even _seeing_. It was more of a _feeling_. It was jumping into a cold swimming pool on a hot summer day. Sitting by a fire, wrapped in a blanket on Christmas Eve. It was safety and home and _love_ —love so strong, it was almost suffocating. Sam was drowning in it, overwhelmed. It was the opposite of what Lucifer’s face was—the exact opposite. Endless, but endlessly pure and kind and so much _love_.

                The fingers were gone. Sam inhaled and sat up. Tears still stained his face, but he looked at Cas.

                “Was that you?” he whispered.

                Cas just kept looking at him.

                Cas was an angel. Sam knew this. But suddenly. He understood.

                Cas was an _angel_. And his friend. His best friend. Another brother. And he felt like that. Was that. After all the bad he had done. The demon blood; Ruby. Letting Lucifer out the first time. An angel felt like _that_ towards him. 

                Sam threw himself at Cas, hugging him tightly. He buried his face in Cas’s shoulder. He smelled like dirt and grime, but beneath all that was the sense of safety, of protector and friend. Cas hugged him back.

                “Lucifer will never hurt you again,” Cas said.

                And for the first time in a long time, Sam could believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://www.darkheartinthesky.tumblr.com)


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